


Until the Very End

by e_of_west_glendia



Category: Harry Potter - J.K Rowling
Genre: Alphard being the best person ever, Marauders era, Regulus and Alphard bonding, Sirius and Alphard bonding, black brothers, pretty much no angst, which is crazy for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:47:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24892618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_of_west_glendia/pseuds/e_of_west_glendia
Summary: Alphard bonding with Regulus and Sirius
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Until the Very End

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of tumblr headcanons written by the lovely @moonscarsandstars

Sirius was five the first time he saw a truly muggle item. It was the summer of 1964– the first time Sirius and Regulus had ever been allowed to stay with their uncle. 

Their parents had had some meeting or another to attend that they ultimately decided that their children shouldn’t be attending. So, they’d dropped the two children off at their uncle's house and been on their way. However, not before Walburga got the chance to pull Alphard aside and quietly tell threaten to murder him if he showed her children anything to do with muggles. Or at least that’s what Sirius had been able to make out from eavesdropping from behind the door. To be fair it was a very dense door. 

It had been an oddly warm day for Britain. The sun beating down on Alphard’s small house and making the inside something reminiscent of an oven. 

Sirius and Regulus had been absolutely bored out of their minds all afternoon. They had plenty of experience with boredom, though. Their parents had never let them do anything interesting and they’d never asked for fear of what they’d do if they did. It was a system built purely on fear and it worked just as Walburga and Orion intended it to. 

So, the Black brothers had figured that Alphard would be much of the same. He’d grown up with their mother so surely he had to share some— if not most— of her ideals? Much to their surprise— and their delight— they were very wrong. 

Alphard passed by their room, the door flung wide open, and stopped dead in his tracks. He’d never seen such a miserable sight. Two small children sitting stiffly and quietly and staring blankly at a wall. 

“Are you two alright?” 

“We’re fine,” Regulus answered. 

Alphard watched him continue to stare at his very bland section of wall before cautiously asking what they were doing. 

“We’re staring silently at the wall,” Sirius said, as if this should’ve been very obvious. 

“Yes but why?” 

“It’s a game that mother taught us. We stay silent and out of her way and she doesn’t break anything,” Regulus said. 

Alphard took a good long look at his nephew’s. They looked so defeated for such a young age. 

“Jesus, what has she done to you?” He muttered. Then, “ Alright, up, both of you.” 

The two boys gave him confused looks which Alphard met with one of exasperation. 

“C’mon get up. I don’t know what that witch has done to you, but I refuse to have my nephews thinking the definition of fun is to stare at walls.” 

Alphard spun on his heel and walked out of the room. Sirius and Regulus only hesitated for a second before they scrambled after him. 

They trailed after him curiously as they went to a small shed behind the house. Alphard threw open the doors to the shed and then turned back to his nephew’s. He swept his hand in front of him, inviting them in. 

Sirius stepped in first, then, Regulus. Both gasping upon entering the shed. 

The first thing they noticed was how much bigger it was on the inside. Regulus had even taken a step back outside to make sure they were indeed in the same shed. 

That had made Alphard laugh. “Undetectable extension charm. Works wonders for storing things.” 

The second thing they noticed were the muggle items. They were everywhere. In every corner of the shed. Mixed amongst various wizarding items on tables and hung haphazardly from walls. Some were stuffed messily into drawers, while others were filed neatly into cabinets. Everything placed into some sort of system that it seemed only Alphard himself could understand. 

It was chaos and it was different and it was new. And Sirius loved it. 

“What is this place?” Regulus breathed, stepping further into the shed and running his fingers across the surface of a large table. 

“This,” Alphard said, gently plucking a rather menacing looking brown bag from Sirius’ hands. “Is my shed of random stuff I found on my travels. Your mother would have a fit if she saw half the stuff in here so, uh, don’t say anything.” 

Sirius and Regulus looked to one another as it silently asking the other what decision to make. 

Then they said: “We won’t!” and took off into the shed. 

They spent the next several minutes looking through as much of the shed as possible. Alphard had just been explaining the contents of a box to Regulus when Sirius called him to the opposite side. 

“What are these?” Sirius asked, pointing to a wall. 

Alphard looked up at the wall of rifles and chuckled. “Those are not for you to play with.” 

Sirius nodded silently, but he still gazed up at them. A light clicking on behind his eyes that hadn’t been there before. 

Sirius peered around him at a small cart. 

“What’s that?” He asked, stepping forward to take a closer look. 

“That,” Alphard said, coming up next to him. “Is a popcorn machine.” 

“What’s it’s function?,” asked Regulus, who had wandered over to them. 

Alphard briefly thought that that had to be the dullest way to ask the use of something— and from a four year old no less. 

“It makes popcorn,” he answered with a shrug. Their resulting blank stares made Alphard realize two things. A— they’d never had popcorn before and B— After all these years Walburga had never quite grasped the concept of happiness. 

Alphard sighed. “Here.” He flipped a switch on the side of the machine and then watched. 

“What’s supposed to happen?” Sirius asked. 

“You’ll see. Any minute now.” 

“But I don’t any— GAH!” Sirius and Regulus kept back a few feet as the first kernels started to pop. 

Sirius took one look at the jumping corn, fascinated by how they went from small and brown, to puffy and white, before launching a barrage of questions at his uncle. Talking a mile a minute. 

“What happened? Why did they do that? What are they? Why do they pop? How does it work? Is it magic? Is it— oof!” 

Sirius glared reproachfully at his brother, who had just elbowed him in the side. The glare dropped when he realized why Regulus had stopped him. First rule of the Black house: Don’t ask questions. 

Sirius was pretty sure he had just broken that rule by a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. 

“What’s wrong?” Alphard asked. His tone surprisingly gentle for a man of his stature l

“I—I’m sorry,” Sirius stammered. “I didn’t mean to ask questions. I just wanted to know how it worked.” 

Alphard knelt down beside Sirius, reaching a hand out to him that Sirius instinctively flinched away from. A look of surprise settling on his face when then hand just settle on his shoulder. 

“Don’t be sorry! you were excited,” Alphard said, smiling at the little boy. A chuckled a bit. “There's nothing wrong in having fun, is there?”

There was dead silence for several seconds before Sirius finally steps forward and wraps his uncle in a hug. Clutching desperately at his robes and crying. It’s the first time he’s ever heard something like that. Never before had he— or Regulus— ever been told it was ok to have fun. 

“Hey, now,” Alphard said, rubbing slow, comforting circles on Sirius’ back. “It’s ok. You have nothing to worry about from me.” 

And for the first time in his life— Sirius believed it. 

Eventually Sirius released his uncle from his death grip of a hug, looking slightly embarrassed— and emotion he would become less and less familiar with as time went by. 

“Have you boys ever been to muggle London?” Alphard asked, knowing full well what their answer would be long before they both shook their heads. 

“What do you say we have an adventure, then?” 

It had been the first of many adventures. Long trips into muggle London filled with ice lollies and laughter and one particular summer where Alphard decided that Sirius was old enough to learn to shoot a rifle. He’d scared the life out of some hens from a neighbor’s yard. The three of them laughing as the woman yelled at them from afar. After that, Sirius always looked forward to hearing about whatever new rifle he had acquired. He also developed a bit of a mischief streak after the chicken incident. 

For a while Sirius has been afraid that Regulus would tell their mother of their little excursions, but then Regulus discovered fish and chips. He was enamored with them from the moment he first tried it. Sirius figured that so long as this love affair with muggle food continued they’d be safe. 

As the years passed, Sirius found any excuse to spend time with his uncle that he could. Alphard doing the same. The summers passed by all too quickly and the winter always seemed colder and bleeker once they left their uncles house. They spent so much time in that shed of his and yet it never seemed to be enough. 

They’d spend nights outside looking up at the seemingly endless blanket of stars across the night sky. Alphard pointing out all the constellations and explaining the meanings behind all of their names. 

When it came time for Sirius to go to Hogwarts, Alphard was the only one who had stuck by him when he was sorted into Gryffindor. His letter of congratulations and excitement a beacon of light amongst the howlers cursing his name. 

“To be honest I’m glad someone in the family got into a different house. Generations of Slytherins doesn’t exactly make for any interesting alumni small talk.” Alphard had said when he flooed him that evening. 

“And I’m glad it was you. Any of the others would’ve been a living nightmare. Honestly I feel bad for all the Slytherin’s that had to put up with some of our family members. Your cousin Bellatrix is a basket case— don’t tell your mother I said that.” 

In all fairness Sirius had turned out to be somewhat of a nightmare for his house. But Alphard was extremely amused by what Sirius and his friends got up to. And he was more than happy to listen as Sirius regaled him with tales of their latest or upcoming pranks. 

Alphard had always made him feel cared about. Accepted. Loved. 

It didn’t matter what he did, his uncle always loved him. 

—— 

That was the thing that stuck with Sirius the most as he looked down at the letter in his hands. It was so cold and so bland for a man who had been neither of those things. 

A letter so grey and tasteless shouldn’t have been used to commemorate his uncle. 

Hell, he shouldn’t even need a letter to be remembering him in the first place. 

It wasn’t fair. Why did all the good people always have the worst things happen to them? But then again, it’s always the most beautiful flowers in the garden that get plucked first. 

Sirius clenched the letter tightly in his fist before standing up and tossing it into the common room fire. His shadow casting eerie shapes across the walls. 

Slowly he reached into his pocket and unraveled another letter. 

He’d received many gifts over the years from his uncle. All of which he’d loved a thousand times more than anything his family— except for Andromeda— could’ve given him. But this— this was more than he could’ve ever imagined he would ever receive. 

In all the time he spent with Alphard he never would’ve thought he would leave everything he owned to him. Never once did it cross his mind. And yet now, here he was, staring down at the last thing his uncle would ever give him. A signed letter giving him everything. All of his childhood memories bundled into one slip of parchment that was far to small to convey the emotions he felt. 

His mother would call him a disgrace to the family. His aunts would call him a blood traitor. 

But Sirius didn’t care. He was all those things and more if he was being honest with himself— and damn proud of it too. 

Sirius sank to the floor, distantly grateful for the late hour. Grateful that no one would see him cry. 

None of what his other family members would say mattered. Not one bit of it. Because Alphard had trusted him and cared for him and loved him. Until the very end.


End file.
